Things Fall Apart: Pistons Spoil The Rondo Show

even bottom-feeding teams expect some production out of positions aside from point guard and power forward

GO C’S

And will fall to the 8th seed.

Solid games on offense from JJ and Wilcox tonight and Rondo very aggressive. As for ray and Pierce, it was like they werent at the game. I am starting to see dysfunction on this team. I know KG was out, but the Pistons are terrible and you can’t lose to them at home. The big man defense was terrible.

Take out CW and JJ, 13-24 w/27 pts and 14 rbs, and put in PP,RA,JO, and MP who are combined 3-20, with 6 min to go.
Well I have to revise my prediction on the next 20 games(including tonite) from 4-16 to 3-17! Thought tonite was a sure win, even with KG out! Oh, well, on to next year!

Another discouraging loss. Even with the Celtics being shorthanded it’s surprising they couldn’t beat the dreadful Detroit Pistons tonight. Detroit played last night and had won a grand total of 2 road games so far this season. Rondo was great in scoring but not defensively and Wilcox provided a spark but that was about it.

Hard to believe that Pierce and Ray were so dreadful even after having 2 days off to rest for this home game against a bad Detroit team. The offense once again collapsed in the 4th quarter. If a Celtics team with Ray, Paul, Rondo and a decent supporting cast can’t overcome a bad Detroit team at home after 2 days of rest then it spells trouble.

At this point it doesn’t matter whose fault it is - whether it’s more Doc, Rondo, Paul, Ray, KG injuries, age or whatever other reasons. Tonight is just another dreadful loss for the Celtics as they continue to disappoint.

Wasn’t it just 10 days ago where so many were saying how this team had turned the corner and were again among the elite teams of the NBA?

As Doc himself said after the Toronto debacle - there is NO EXCUSE for this effort…

I’d be willing to bet the team is at .500 or lower.

Taking the ball out of Ray & Pierce’s hands is never a good idea. Both need to develop a flow though the game & Rondo taking 27 shots stops that from happening.

Dooling is not the answer. Bradley is offensively challenged. Cs are losing to a lame pistons team. Doc, would it kill you to put Moore in the game, maybe, just maybe?

KG didn’t play. that’s kinda a big deal

The Steamer finally got some playing time tonight and then looked like he had lead in hias shoes. Of course it was a long list of disappointments.

Or does anyone else feel there’s a correlation between Rondo’s 27 shots and 35 points and Pierce and Ray not being involved? I mean, Rondo had a great game, but do we want this to be his role? I think we’re much better off when he’s distributing.

At least until the final quarter of course. I’m not going after Rondo. He played great.

Where were Ray and Paul, though? Where have they been? What’s going on with them?

Our defense sucked. It seemed every shot the Pistons took was going in.

Love JaJuan’s game!! Keep improving young fella! I want this guy tipo be our future PF.

Is ray allen gonna contribute!? His defense has been trash lately and he struggles to get in double digit points…pierce, kg, allen and rondo should AT LEAST be able to chip in a minimum of 12-15 points EACH in EVERY game. Thats not too much to ask from 4 all star caliber players.

You know what is funny - early in the season when the Celtics were struggling one of the main excuses here was a lack of training camp, incorporating new players into the system and those type of things.

Somehow the Knicks added Jeremy Lin to the starting lineup. Without Carmelo and Stoudemire for stretches of games and more importantly having a new PG without any significant time to prepare the Knicks have won 7 straight games.

Funny how other teams seem to overcome these type of obstacles but for the Celtics who have a top level coach and more proven veteran leaders than any other NBA team these obstacles are often seen as insurmountable…

Linsanity dishing out 13 assists in 24 minutes in a15 point win over the kings.

As for Pierce, he seems to be regressing back to his early season performances.

Rondo will be gone by mid-season

Given how well the new-look Knicks are playing now, and Philly, Indiana, Orlando all doing well… I think the Celtics need to start worrying about making the playoffs at all, let alone go deep. They’ve had a couple of brilliant games, but fall apart too often…. and the remainder of the schedule is MUCH tougher than it’s been. Future looking pretty grim…..

Btw… boring game.

If Lin were on the Celtics roster right now, what do you want to bet doc would be playing dooling instead anyway?

If Rondo doesn’t shoot then it’s because he isn’t a good shooter. If Rondo does shoot then he’s shooting too much. SMH what’s going on here really? It’s our first loss to this crap team from the other two we won against them, stuff happens. And I’m more concerned about the Bulls game tomorrow than this one. Kudos to Rondo making career-high points and doing an awesome job as the C’s shooter tonight! Maybe you guys could show some love to the guy at least for tonight. Last sunday he had a monster triple-double Larry Bird style, and tonight he achieved career-high points, sinked alot of jump-shooters and even a 3-pointer! looks at Pierce & Allen and what did you guys do tonight again?? Oh and let’s get rid of: Dooling, Daniels, and Pavlovic PLEASEEEEE!!!

Oh and J.O too!!

The Knicks won either 4 or 5 in a row without Amare and Melo

make a big trade or hope for a lottery pick, the team we have now can only go as far as the 2nd round and thats thinking optimistically.

Other than Rondo, Wilcox and some young guys played well but everyone else looked uninspired. Bad game. I’m not sure what’s worse for us this year, getting plenty of rest or playing every night because they played almost as bad tonight as they did in Toronto.

Even he is saying there are some people in the locker room right now upset that they didn’t get enough touches.

trap game, more like a trap season

yuck-another smeller. without kg, there was very poor pick and roll defense. lots of room for pistons to shoot. wallace killed us off the boards. a very poor game from jo whom we really needed- he’s slow. don’t blame rondo- the fogies ra and pp were playing on medicare.

It was a “Trap Game”. We should’nt have played it. We were Tricked.

11-8 in those 19 games. Does not bode well at all for the rest of the year.

Our bench, again, was all negative. Massively negative.

Yes, Pierce and Ray both looked sluggish and didn’t do a ton. But while they were on the floor, at least they were spacing things and indirectly helping Rondo get room. Plus, they, and the other starters actually played semi-decent defense. Overall, their +/- numbers were net positive, though not by a lot.

The bench, though, posted a huge fat stinker.
Here are the +/- numbers for our bench (minutes in parenthesis):

Pietrus (15:59) -9
Johnson (25:05) -15
Bradley (8:34) -8
Dooling (14:39) -8
Stiemsma (12:48) -10

That’s pretty bad.

No – that’s really, really bad.

…that Rondo’s scoring was the reason the rest of the guys got too few touches early in the game, and that’s why they failed to catch on. I don’t really see it that way (it’s a chicken-and-egg thing), but gotta take Doc’s point into consideration.

Ray and Pierce just look so old in some games against young guys, they just don’t consistently have that quick first step, Ray gets stopped every time he tries to drive middle, and Pierce needs screens or a mismatch to get over 15 points- really makes you appreciate KG’s screens for Ray and Paul.
Paul was in lala land on help defense too.
We almost won this game with a newish squad and shot less than 10 threes.
You can’t go for a small ball line up with the 3 point shooter we have, and shoot less than 3 three pointers a quarter.

Paul Pierce is everyone sacred cow. I realize this. Still anyone with two eyes could see he put in about a 50% effort last night.

Pierce was the one running the offense when Detroit built the lead, a lead the Celtics would never over come. That lead was built directly on Paul Pierce turnovers, Paul Pierce forced shots and poor defense from the entire team during a stretch when Rondo wasn’t even in the game.

Earlier in the game when the Celtics should, have been dominating if they were giving a full effort defensively, Pierce wasn’t getting touches. You want to know why Pierce wasn’t getting touches? Because he was loafing up the court and hanging out at the 3pt line while Rondo and Wilcox were busting their tails and flying up and down the court.

I don’t believe in blaming one guy for a team loss. It is ridiculous. It is even more ridiculous to blame Rondo who was one of maybe three guys who actually showed up to play last night. If I were going to blame one guy I would start with the sacred cow because his effort last night was lacking.

This team just finally clicks. Like In the playoffs. The potential is there just inconsistent